This blog discusses current weather, weather prediction, climate issues, and other topics

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

UPDATE II: The Record is Broken!

It happened...Sea Tac is now 101 and STILL CLIMBING. Everett is an amazing 98 and Renton 102. And this is not over yet. We will not only break the record but smash it. Locations near the foothills are reaching 104- 106. This is an extraordinary event. Many stations will break their all-time record temperatures today and even more their daily values. Ballads will be written about the heat experienced today.

Convection is forming over the mountains. Today I noticed altocumulus castellanus...midlevel convection... on this side of the Cascades. The focus of the convection may shift our way.... In fact, looking at the radar and satellite imagery...it already has.

I went outside before...when I walked over asphalt or concrete my face felt on fire from the combination of high air temperature plus radiation emitting from the surface. Some students in my dept measured the surface ground temps with an infrared thermometer...they found 120-150F in some locations.

And did I mention that tomorrow will be almost as hot in the interior? Low clouds are pushing to the coast now...so go there if you want relief.

For those interested, I will be talking on the Weather Channel late this afternoon about the situation at 5:40 PM

I've been collecting daily weather data from a site 6 miles ENE of North Bend for 31 years and have never recorded early morning temperatures this high or temperature rises this significant. During one Easterly gust the temperature went to 107.3 and held there for 12 minutes before slowly dropping back to a cool 103 degrees. Temperatures have been over 100 degrees out here near exit 34 since 1130, currently (1539) it is cooling with a steady temp of 102. Glad I was here to verify or I would have written today's weather data off as instrument failure.

Stewie, many WU sites are accurate and some aren't. The site are run by hobbyists and there is no guarantee their weather stations are set up properly. The one reading 115° probably has direct sun shining on the thermometer during part of the day.

Here on the Sammamish plateau a high of 108.0 was reached at 3:05 PM. Current temp at 4:00 106.9. I was hoping to hit 105 today so when I saw 108 I was really excited. I figure if it's going to be hot we may as well have something to brag about!!

I thought the comment a few days ago about blaming Greg Nickles for this was pretty good:)

Off to find an air conditioned restaraunt with ice cold Margaritas to celebrate a memorable day.

wunderground is as good as the station in question. :) I should get ours checked out at the Museum of Flight. It often jives with the KBFI reading, so I'm fairly confident the 106.2 was only a degree or two off! :)

Nice tip on utilizing METAR temps for official values. I have a PWS on Wunderground.com (it is what shows up when you type "Bothell, WA" due to my proximity). My thermometer is located in the shade and is reporting a high of 96.3 so far (4pm).

Metars are also good in the winter when you want to know just how foggy it is at Sea Tac before your flight. They are pretty easy to decode, a quick google of metar decoder will give you an automatic decoder.

Cliff - I was just wondering why sites like weather underground actually show higher temperatures than what we ever see reported. For example, it's reporting 111.2 in Renton (98059) right now, 112.1 in 98008, etc...

Chase-Cheers! Interesting drive to Aberdeen today. Temperature dropped 13 degrees in 5 miles on Highway 8 westbound, about 4 miles west of Elma. This was at about 1445 local. Max temps on the drive home were about 10 degrees cooler in Elma/east of Elma than two hours prior. Marine push is here. Doubtful that it will make it past the Black Hills.

I took a high tech digital thermometer into Husky Stadium at 1:30 for my workout. It was 99 degrees in the shade; 107 in the Sun both at 5' with no wind. It was 116 degrees close to the surface of the stairs and 160 degrees on the surface of the new Field Turf football field. Needless to say no running in my bare feet. Gregg Teslovich

Went to Golden Gardens at 2, noticed there was no one on the sandy beach, thought "wow, Coney Is. would be packed! Plenty of room here."Walked across the sand in flip-flops - and literally burned my feet. Small welts are popping up.

Temps so far today seem WAY behind yesterday's readings all over Western WA. And some marine air has definitely gotten into the Willamette Valley now, and maybe even started to seep into the Portland-Vancouver area. Soon relief.

The West Seattle station in question definitely has "sun" issues. There are several around it that are much more accurate (mine is one of them).

While mine is more accurate, in no way is it set up correctly for record type recordings, but it is likely within a degree of an exact measurement.

With Wunderground I normally look at 3-5 stations in a given area to see if they are about in agreement. If they are a mile apart I would expect a couple of degree difference (say down in the hole here in Fauntleroy vs up on the hill in White Center), but they should be close enough to make logical sense.